Ucf Praised For Dealing With Its Deficit

TAMPA — The University of Central Florida received a back-handed compliment Tuesday night for being the only state university to acknowledge and deal with its athletic deficit.

A Florida Board of Regents committee commended UCF for making plans to reduce its $1.1 million deficit, unlike the University of South Florida in Tampa and Florida A&M University in Tallahassee.

Committee members complained that FAMU, for instance, has not produced an audit of its athletic department in several years and has ''reduced'' its $770,000 deficit by not paying its bills.

''That is a strange accounting procedure to me,'' Regent William Leonard of Fort Lauderdale said.

The athletic committee, which is assessing the regents' role in overseeing sports, is looking for ways to ward off deficits.

One proposal is to prohibit paying for athletics with money borrowed from other departments, unless the regents have approved. That would affect UCF, which has been supporting athletics with borrowed funds.

A similar, existing rule restricts the use of tax revenues to support athletics, but figures released Tuesday show state universities' spending more than $800,000 in this way.

Wayne Young, deputy director for business and financial services, said part or all of the spending may be in violation.

UCF President Trevor Colbourn, the only university president attending, told the committee that institutions should develop large reserve funds before starting major sports.

''The question would be how much and how you do it,'' Colbourn said. ''It's awfully hard to raise money when there's nothing there no existing program to sell boosters on.''

UCF fielded its first football team in 1979. Four years later, the school announced plans to move from NCAA Division II to Division I-AA, the second- highest classification for college football.

To be eligible for Division I-AA in football, UCF had to upgrade its other sports to Division I levels. That cost more money than the school took in for athletics and led to today's deficit.